


The Fourth Daughter of Lord Gwyn

by SmexyWatermelon



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls III
Genre: Adoption, Family Issues, Gen, Gwyndolin is the Waifu That Needs To Be Protected, Illusions, Lies, Lord Gwyn Is A Massive Jerk, Oneshot, Priscilla/Nameless King, This is seriously just me praising Gwyndolin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-02-27
Packaged: 2018-09-24 11:28:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9722291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmexyWatermelon/pseuds/SmexyWatermelon
Summary: Yorshka: daughter of the God of War, adopted sister of the Dark Sun and sole survivor of Aldrich's attack on Anor Londo.But she would have never made it this far without Gwyndolin's help.





	

**Author's Note:**

> We all know Yorshka and Priscilla are somehow related. I just wanted to explore the idea of her being the Nameless King’s daughter.  
> Conspiracy theory ensued.

The rain kept falling insistently on Anor Londo’s rocky structures: as night grew darker the Dark Sun had silently slipped away from the royal quarters’ fortified walls and hid in the shadows of the alleys to reach for the old bridge in the outskirts of the city, underneath which he and his siblings used to play.  
He spent most of the time looking towards the fortress underneath, looking mesmerized at the distant knights regularly pacing on the top of the walls.

The noise of water drops splashing on the ground was interrupted by the familiar sound of heavy muffled steps and when he spun around he almost didn’t believe his eyes as he saw the bulky shape of his brother’s body hidden underneath several layers of cloaks approached him.  
The limp in his walk was evident, although he proceeded steadily down the alley, his little eyes looking from underneath the hood around, skimming the environment, probably expecting an ambush around every corner.

"Brother!" the Dark Sun murmured as he dropped his invisibility illusion and swiftly moved beside the bigger form of the God of War, who stopped to glance at the lithe form of his younger sibling.  
"What art thee doing here?!"  
Gwyndolin had been pondering for days about the new situation that had presented itself, never finding a satisfying solution to make brother and father reconcile: he was there when the fall out had happened, and never had he witnessed the God of Sunlight so angered. Seeing the brother inside the walls again filled him with the hope of a reconciliation between the two, but he had had to grow up too fast to believe in such a trustful outcome.

The man stared at the cloaked figure of Gwyndolin: without his helm and his snaky legs tugged underneath a dress, he would have had some difficulties recognizing him hadn’t he just appeared out of nowhere.  
He cleared his voice, tiredly blinking a couple of times. “It’s a most urgent matter. Else I wouldn’t have asked thee to come.”  
“Thou are risking thy life just by stepping foot here.” He said, closing the distance further between the two of them. His lids lowered as he looked down for a moment, his long lashes caressing his cheeks.  
“Lord Gwyn ordered the dismantling of thy effigies today.”

A scornful smile curved the corners of the lips of the God of War. “I had guessed that much.”  
He closed his eyes for a bit longer than a standard blink, and when he opened them again Gwyndolin saw for the first time since the day he was born something resembling hurt in his brother’s eyes.  
"Father took Priscilla away." The shock became panic as he realized what the next move of his reckless brother would have been.  
"Thee can't look for her! The guards are everywhere--"  
"Gwyndolin-" Again in his eyes, something he had never witnessed: resignation. "I know not whether she's still alive."  
He saw his Adam’s apple moving up and down, his jaw clenching as his eyes shone clearer for a moment in the starless night’s dim light.  
"I need to ask thee a favor.”  
His body felt icy and cold had begun to freeze his fingertips and nose, but at those words he felt something warm spread, like a little flame brought back to life. "What doth thee want me to do?"

The massive form of his elder brother moved his thick fur cloak away with his arm, exposing a writhing little blanket nestled on the crook of his arm.  
Gwyndolin had to scout closer before being able to peek at the face of the little being: no more than a couple of days old, sparse tufts of white hair on her head and cheeks covered in thin opalescent scales, just like her mother.  
"I trust thee'll keep her safe."

Fear overtook him for a moment when his brother carefully handed him the young crossbreed: being the youngest and the most loathed in the whole city, he had never held a baby, and the responsibility his brother was giving him felt too heavy for him.  
His soft fingers hosted her head while his other arm wrapped around her form to keep her against his chest.

“Are thee sure? She’s…”  
His voice cracked and just then he realized he was trembling: he didn’t want to let his brother down, but the task was feeling chokingly overwhelming.  
Two big strong hands squeezed both his shoulders, and he raised his head to meet his brother’s gaze, keeping the child’s sleeping form close to his breast.

“Thou art my brother: there is no way thee’ll ever raise her wrong. I know thee, Gwyndolin.” Something in his chest twisted, pain and joy excruciatingly digging in his heart.  
“And I know thee are the only one who could ever be able to deceive Gwyn.”  
His eyes traveled down back towards the lump in his arms, the thumb of the hand holding her head slowly traveled to softly caress the sleeping baby’s cheek.

 _I’m scared, but…_ “I promise thee I’ll take good care of her.”

The tiny being writhed in Gwyndolin's arms. As silence settled between the two of them, just the noise of rain could be heard echoing throughout the small alleys.  
"For how long will thou be gone?" he gulped, fearing the answer but needing to know it all the same.

"I know not. Maybe forever." Gwyndolin's eyes moistened hearing the news: the first born had been the only one to truly accept him in the family. Without him, Anor Londo wouldn’t have been the same.  
He had never been a hugger, but he relished the warmth seeping through the firstborn’s clothes as he loosely wrapped his massive arm around his shoulders, and tears finally prickled his eyes when he parted. "Farewell, little brother."  
He could simply nod, his lips formed the words but the sounds remained stuck in his throat. He clutched the baby tighter against his chest as the huge man turned around and started making his way back inside the narrow hallways.

There were tears in Gwyndolin’s evanescent purple eyes, but he was used to holding them back. He sniffed, covering the baby with part of his cloak, but fearing for her well being he quickly moved back towards the road that would have brought him back to the castle.

When he reached the gardens he easily slipped back inside the royal quarters: knowing the patrolling routes by memory had surely helped him much over the course of the years.  
He knew he would have had to wait for a couple of minutes before being able to slip inside the castle unnoticed, he just needed to wait the next shift.  
As he sat inside the old abandoned armory hut standing in the corner of the garden, he silently lulled the baby in his arms, her resemblance to Priscilla platonic.

His brother hadn’t told him her name, but somehow he knew what he would have wished this child to be named.  
"Yorshka."  
She opened her little eyes and looked up at the Dark Sun, her hands reaching for his hair and catching one of the fair locks between her fingers.  
“It will be just thou and me for a while, child.” He murmured softly with a little smile on his lips.  
She yawned and he smiled again, a tear he hadn’t realized had been forming in the pit of his eye fell down his cheek.  
“I will protect thee from Father. I will protect thee from anything. This, I promise.”

\------

After a couple of hours spent gathering ideas, judging what course of action would have been the safest, he waited for the night to pass, too tense to sleep and too concerned about Yorshka’s well being to close his eyes for more than a couple of minutes.  
Luckily, his machinations didn’t need quite a long preparation: a simple spell was his only chance to slip the baby inside undetected. He knew he wouldn’t have lasted long keeping her hidden, but the Dark Sun had plans: he was not beautiful or strong like his siblings, but he was cunning, and during the years he had come to learn many of the court’s weaknesses; most of them being his Father’s.  
He was a God, sure…but Gwyndolin liked to put the right emphasis on the _’was’_. He had grown selfish, egocentric. Not that he had ever liked showing anything more than tolerance and badly concealed disgust towards the Dark Sun, and mind you, he did know that he should have despised him, but he was simply too clever to disregard so easily the side of his father that he only seemed to show in the presence of his siblings.

But even that joy, all those affections, all that lively caring man had to offer, all of that had dulled with the years; now, even with his low self-esteem, Gwyndolin was ashamed to still have to call that hateful havoc ‘father’.  
He forced those thoughts in the back of his mind, trying to focus on the task at hand; he knew when and where was the most profitable time to approach him: all alone in the common chambers, after he had started drinking but before he could have finished the bottle.

The Dark Sun moved inside the room silently, the thick carpets making his already quiet movements imperceptible to the untrained ears.  
“Mother cometh today.” He stated firmly, slowly approaching his father from behind while lulling Yorshka in his arms.  
“Velka. What did she want?” a raspy voice replied from the front of the armchair.  
He slid nearer the God, leaning in on his side the little he needed to make him see the beautiful puffy regular child he was holding in his arms, silently hoping the alcohol and the remembrance of the only other goddess his father had ever loved besides Fina would have been enough to distract him from the thin illusion masking Yorshka’s true nature. “She claims she’s thine.”  
Bushy eyebrows raised from the sloppy expression painted on his face as he skimmed Yorshka’s little body. “Another lost token of hers? What use could be something coming from her?” Gwyndolin’s eyes remained fixed on his father: he didn’t care how lowly he treated him, he needed to make sure little Yorshka would have been safe.

“She’s thine own blood, Father. Would you have me shove a baby out of the door?” he calmly and – as much as he was able to – reverently replied to Gwyn.

A drunken, broken relic. That’s what was left of the Sunlight God after Fina had escaped from the city, fearing – as many others were starting to do – for the longevity of this blessed Age of Fire.  
Without a lover or someone else to ease his burdens on, he was no better than any of the men – born from Darkness, wicked by nature – which Gwyndolin had rarely seen roam Lordran.

He did the best he could to muffle his sigh of relief when Gwyn let go of the bottle and easily hoisted Yorshka on his forearm, the pointer finger of his free hand gently moving the rags Yorshka was wrapped in to take a better look at her face.  
Gwyn was not known to be exceedingly smart, and as the illusion tricked him Gwyndolin watched as the Father welcomed his new daughter.

\-----

The years had passed fast, too fast if you asked the Dark Sun, and albeit he hadn’t seen his brother since that fateful night he cherished every day he had got to spend beside the tiny energetic crossbreed.

She spent all her time with him, partially because of necessity and partially because – to the Dark Sun’s own surprise – she liked following him around the city and helping him with his studies. Albeit circumstances had them act as siblings, that kid meant so much more to the Dark Sun – probably even more than a daughter would have.  
She liked walking to the high walls of Anor Londo, especially during windy days when Gwyndolin’s robes became tremendously difficult to handle – having him trying to uncoil himself from his own clothes every three foot – but the look she had on her face was worth it every single time.

Before, he rarely left his chambers, much less enjoyed staying outside, but now that he could teach something, pass on his knowledge, and have finally someone to keep him company, he didn’t mind roaming around the castle at all.  
Sure, casting spells every single day had become tiring for his body: he had been training for years to cast illusions, but as Anor Londo steadily darkened and the gods had started fleeing in masses the amount of energy he had to put in it had become too demanding.

Albeit the lack of energies, he felt – for the first time in a long while – happy. Albeit the circumstances didn’t actually smile upon them, he knew this was as close as perfection he would ever get. And as he saw her running down the wall, trying to catch the wind in her open palms, he knew it was worth it, he knew it was perfect. If only he hadn’t got ill-  
He felt it grabbing at his spine first, then traveling down each of his appendages: the Dark Sun flopped in half without whining, the words stuck in his throat as every fiber of his being tensed up, his snake-like legs going limp and letting him hit the ground with a soft thud.

“Brother!” the young voice screamed at the top of her lungs, and something kicked in inside the back of his mind, something that bid him to stand up, to be up to the fatherly figure he had always wished for.  
“I-it’s nothing…” He tried to pin a hand on the ground and lever himself up, but his elbow gave in even before he could heave himself from the marble floor.  
“Quickly! The weakness is overtaking him again!”  
Little Yorshka called out for the guards, and as the silver-bound men came rushing down the corridor his blurred vision caught a glimpse of white hair as the little crossbreed hugged him tightly.

 

When he came to, he was inside his quarters, tucked in his warm bed. He slowly pinned his hands on the mattress and sat up, his head still feeling a little dizzy but mostly fine.  
He pinched the bridge of his nose and mechanically reached for the pile of books towering on his bed-stand, picking the first on top of it and opening it where he had left, forcing himself to keep reading, studying about the flame and anything that could have preserved Gwyn’s heritage as long as possible.  
He knew the fire would have died one day, and he knew as well what had happened to the Witch of Izalith, much to his dismay to see a fellow mage falling in such a foolish attempt.  
He turned the pages, recalling as he went on notions of history and magic alike, wondering whether or not humanity would have been the key to preserve the little Gwyn still possessed.

“Are you okay?” he hadn’t even heard her coming in: the crossbreed looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to see her before stepping inside the room.  
“Of course I am, now that thou are here.” He said, faking a smile, closing the book and placing it on top of his bedsheets.  
Yorshka was carrying a tray with a teapot and two empty cups: she gently placed it on the empty bed-stand opposite to Gwyndolin, moving then to the side of his mattress and tiptoeing to sit on the edge of it.

“Your face doesn’t look okay.” He had a sickly appearance during normal days, now he probably looked like a walking corpse at best.  
“Well, that’s not a nice thing to say to your sick brother.” She scouted a bit closer, her big eyes skimming the room as if looking for someone spying on them, and when she turned back towards his she whispered. “You could stop casting it.”

“Yorshka…” he exhaled deeply as he caressed her cheek: dear, she had no idea the illusions he had to cast and endure everyday had extended to the whole city. “Appearance and titles are the key to maintaining power.” The Dark Sun gently combed Yorshka’s hair with his fingers. “It is not a possibility to let anyone know about our situation: we simply must endure.” He sighed, seeing only reveries and fantasies shining in his niece’s eyes; she was just like her father: good and pure of heart, with little grasp on what was actually going on around her.

“But I don’t want to see you like this!” she pouted, just like the child she still was. “I know it hurts you!”  
He smiled sweetly at all that care she was showing him, something he had been rarely granted with during his life. “Thou art a sweet child, but let me handle this.” His hand caressed her hair and cheek, “Thy father would be so proud of thee.”

Yorshka’s eyes slyly looked around the room before setting back on the Dark Sun.  
“Can you tell me something about him again?”  
Gwyndolin smiled and nodded, raising his arm to gesture at Yorshka to come closer. “Of course.”  
The girl’s eyes shone with joy as she scouted closer to her uncle, placing her head against his chest and silently listening to his voice, just like she had done so many years before.

\-----

It was almost unbelievable how badly his plans had turned against him at some point.

Not that he cared for the reckless undead that came from time to time to wander where they shouldn’t, revealing illusions that never should have been touched. But as more and more of those once-humans ran to sacrifice themselves in the kiln of the First Flame, giving life back to the remnants of his long gone father, many began to question why things were how they were.

Why Frampt and not Kaathe, why Light and not Darkness, why Gods and not Humans.

At first, it was not a problem. If a Chosen hollowed another soon came to take its place, saving the flame just in time. But then, there were more and more undead questioning, and more and more lords of cinders telling the tale of how the flames scorched and burnt them, leaving blinding pain as a recurring memory.  
Everything had gone to waste… so quickly, crumbling in his fingers like long forgotten ash.  
In the end, nothing mattered: all the people lost to protect the flame, all the lives mowed to shut the revolution of an Age of Darkness down before it could even start.

The worst was that the thing he feared the most had become reality: war was brought upon Anor Londo’s cold dead remains. No one but him and Yorshka to defend the place, no one to rely on but themselves.  
The siege had been going on for days, and when the half-hollowed soldiers had finally broken through, there was little he could do but fight them back one by one.  
What angered him the most, was the horrible irony of all of this.  
  
He coughed blood, the taste of copper crawling from the back of his throat, his mind busy formulating a plan, refusing to have one of the many who had refused to link the flame bring him, Dark Sun Gwyndolin, third born of the God of Sunlight, to his knees.

He had seen many times the brink of disaster approaching on the horizon, and just as many times he had had a plan to save the day, but now… now something inside of him simply knew he couldn’t have done a thing to change the course of events: the land had withered, where once warmth and light thrived, now only darkness and ice could be found.

The pontiff’s troops had retreated, but he knew it was just a matter of time before Sulyvhan would have come commanding yet another wave of desperate souls following him, choosing the lesser of the two evils.

As the wind brought the stench of rot and blood he raised his head, his nose crinkling as he knew what was coming for him: folklore depicted him as a saint, a hero, a rebel. Legends spoke of its hunger and madness.

“Gwyndolin…!” Yorshka came running down the aisle, kneeling down to aid him, trying to pull him in a standing position again. He pushed her away, yanking his arm free of her grasp. “Run. The knightess will protect thee.”  
“Uncle Gwyndolin—“  
“Don’t make my sacrifice meaningless. Go!”

He looked up and she nodded, tears in her eyes, but understanding as well had settled in her fair irises. The noise of her feet slapping on the floor in the opposite direction of the main entrance became more and more distant, the wind whipping against Anor Londo’s high towers the only thing Gwyndolin could hear, cadenced by his heartbeat thumping in his ears.

It wasn’t the worst death he could imagine – he guessed it was right for a god-to-be to kill him, instead of a regular chosen. The bitter remark his mind kept making at the thought of dying was becoming less and less strong, for he knew he had slim chances of getting out of the fight against the God Eater alive.

Suddenly, a huge, roaring, hungry growl came from the big archway in front of him, and a slimy dark mud came forth, nibbling at the marble stairs in his passage as he crawled towards the top of Anor Londo’s stairs.  
The Dark Sun’s fingers clenched on his bow, using it to lever himself back up, blood rushing through his body, dizziness blurring his vision for a second before he took an arrow from the quiver hanging from his side and nocked it in his bow, too weak to even think about muttering another spell.

A greasy, rough voice slimed inside his mind, making way through thoughts too weak to stop it.  
“I’ve been looking for you, Dark Sun.”

He let go of the arrow, hearing it make a _shunk_ noise as it hit the toothy mud and slowly started sinking inside of it, rotting as it did so.

“My, my, aren’t you cute…” Gwyndolin gasped as he saw his attack nullified, his hand trembled as it reached for another arrow, blood loss darkening the edges of his vision as he fought to stay conscious.

The mud sloshed closer, completely blocking the door in front of him and raising a few feet from the ground – almost forming a pointy protuberance that _looked_ at him, without really having any corporeal mean to do so.  
“It’s useless- it’s just a waste of arrows. Surrender. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”  
Another arrow sunk in, crumbling and rotting as before.  
“Aren’t you tired of being alone?”  
“Stay… away…”  
“I could make the pain stop.”  
“Stay away from me!”

Another arrow sunk in, and Aldrich rapidly closed the distance between the two of them. “Your flesh will make for a fine appetizer.”  
The mud pounced on the God’s body, knocking him back on the ground, a pained yell resonating in his throat as the tiny tendril-like teeth dug in his flesh, beheading most of the snakes he had been despising during his childhood and sinking further deeper, cutting through tissue and flesh, licking at his internal organs as he slowly teared him apart.  
His hand feebly reached for the bow, which had landed to his side, but as Aldrich dug deeper his will to fight back softly subsided, leaving him at the mercy of the God-Eater.

The blackness was spreading in his vision, tears of sorrow staining the corners of his eyes, as one last idea formed in his tattered mind.  
Words and formulas he had learnt by memory were easily recalled, and he recited mechanically one word after the other, not even thinking about what he was doing, for the pain was too blinding to think anymore.  
The mud screeched as he finished muttering the last binding keys of his spell, curving back, convulsions slamming its sticky appendages around and spreading on the ground in sloshes: its pain resonated through Gwyndolin’s body, the scream invading his mind and making his very soul tremble as he was thrashed around, hitting his back against the floor repeatedly as the tendril that had begun eating him had no intention of letting go of his prey.

He could feel the blood dripping down his nose and chin, some internal wounds still bleeding and being licked clean from the inside by Aldrich’s nimble tendrils.  
His vision was blurring, his chest heavy and breathing getting harder and harder; the tendrils had stopped digging, and if that inhuman filthy puddle could have been shivering, that’s what it would have been doing.

“Feast, Aldrich. Eat me, if thou so desire. But cherish it, for it will be the last meal thee will consume for a very long time.”

His head rested back on the cold marble floor, which was becoming more and more comfortable as his eyelids had become heavier and heavier.  
And even if he could feel the priest’s fingers digging inside his memories and thoughts, even though he knew he would have been denied the honorable death he had been hoping for, he knew Yorshka would have been safe from that otherworldly monster.

“This, I promise.” He muttered as his consciousness softly merged with Aldrich’s own twisted chorus of mindless preys, blood dripping down the corner of his mouth as he exhaled his last breath with a smile on his lips.


End file.
